The manner in which Kings XI Punjab decimated the Delhi Daredevils line-up for 67 runs and then cantered to a ten-wicket win in Mohali to keep themselves in the reckoning for a playoff spot was as clinical a performance as they come in T20 cricket. And captain, Glenn Maxwell said as much while speaking to iplt20.com after bowling DD out for their lowest total in the IPL. After being left out for the match against Sunrisers Hyderabad, Sandeep Sharma returned for the match against DD and finished with his best T20 figures – 4/20 – and claimed the Man of the Match award. “He has been outstanding!” said Maxwell about his pacer. “Bowling three overs in the powerplay is a tough job, but he has taken the job in his stride and he does a great job for us all the time. Probably missing out last game was probably the kick on the bum that he probably needed and you just saw the performance today. Hopefully he goes on to bigger and better things from now on because he is an outstanding player and we are a better team when he is bowling well for us.” “To Sandeep’s credit, he asked for the ball which something as a captain I love, guys wanting to bowl. Even in his last over he goes ‘I want that over’. If a guy wants it that bad, he can have it. He was brilliant,” the captain added. Sandeep, who enjoys bowling with the new ball and had taken three wickets in his first spell of three overs, said, “I am the local guy. So, I knew that in an afternoon game it (the wicket) plays a bit slow. My plan was to pitch up and that’s what I was trying to do and it paid off.” After Sandeep and co. had claimed the DD top-order in the powerplay, Maxwell along with Axar Patel maintained a tight leash through the middle overs. Explaining his move, the skipper said, “We weren’t going for boundaries at that stage. So, I tried and stuck with it till they made the mistake. The talk within our team is to make the opposition make the first mistake. Luckily enough, I was able to get through four overs with no boundaries. I think that was probably the main thing. If I got hit for a boundary here and there, I probably would take myself off and go to the quicks. But I was able to stretch through four overs without too much damage and Axar is just doing a great job. He is our No 1 spinner; he has got the No 1 economy rate in our team. He has been bowling in awkward positions, say the fifth or the sixth over when teams are going over, or he has been coming on straight after it. For him to bowl four overs straight, that’s a great sign for him.” The performance upfront helped leave Varun Aaron for the end overs. Asked if that was the plan or they just had the luxury today, Maxwell replied, “We had that luxury today to bring him on and be more as a burst bowler and unsettle the lower order; it probably just worked out perfectly. I didn’t probably plan like that at the start, but he came on and did a perfect job for us. I wanted him to be aggressive and hit the wicket hard, and luckily enough we had the luxury of few wickets first and that always makes it easy for a quick bowler coming back in.” Explaining his decision to bowl, Maxwell said, “It has been part of our plans right throughout the tournament: to bowl first and try and chase. If you look at the history of T20 cricket – especially the last IPL was very much most of the time teams chasing a win – so with those stats behind us I thought that would be a good option. I didn’t think that the wicket would play as slow as it did, though it played beautifully into our hands and sorted our quicks out and made them probably more threatening than normal.” Besides the bowling, the fielding too was up a notch in the game. And again, Sandeep led the way with a brilliant one-handed return catch on his follow through that sent back Shreyas Iyer. “That’s the thing, we probably missed few opportunities like that whole way through the tournament and to take those little half-chances makes a massive difference going forward. So, if it didn’t quite carry or we didn’t quite hold on to the catch, you never know it could have been a different outcome. But for him to take that catch it was almost a massive swing of momentum. Even if we had them on the ropes at that stage, for him to take that catch and put a foot on the throat for whole way through was outstanding,” Maxwell said. “When he played it, I just went with that momentum without thinking and it stuck. So, it feels good,” said Sandeep while looking back on the catch. With eight points from nine matches, KXIP would need more such performances to keep their campaign alive. Reflecting on the win, Maxwell said, “I suppose having a clinical win as that helps our run rate actually. It brings us a lot closer than (what) our win-loss probably shows. There’s still a big chance for the group to win three of the last five, but this still is a great momentum swing where we have such a dominant performance with the bat and have all our quicks bowling well at the same time. Hope we can continue with that.” Speaking about the quick regrouping that helped pull off a comprehensive win, the KXIP captain said, “We tell them to relax and try and forget what happened. We reflected briefly on what happened and guys understood what they needed to do to rectify mistakes of the previous game. Everything went wrong in the last game and everything went right in this game. Unfortunately, that’s the way T20 cricket goes. But the way the guys regrouped I can’t be happier as a captain watching these guys.”